


Transfiguration

by timeheist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-11
Updated: 2014-09-11
Packaged: 2018-02-16 23:53:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2289344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timeheist/pseuds/timeheist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Transfiguration essays, some fiction, some non-fiction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Year - Lesson 2 - Transfiguration in History

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pick a Branch: Minimum of 300 words.
> 
> Please pick any ONE of the four branches of transfiguration (transformation, vanishing, conjuration and untransfiguration) and elaborate on the branch and its importance as well as real life uses. 
> 
> Alternately, you may use some creativity for this assignment. The prompt remains the same, but you have a few options:   
> **\- Write a short story about how you can use one of the four branches in your daily life. (500 word minimum)**  
>  \- Make an artistic drawing performing a transfiguration spell. A 150 word essay must accompany the image with an explanation of what is happening in the picture and why your chosen branch is important.  
> \- A poem or song that is a minimum of 200 words.  
> \- A short video (must be 1-2 minutes long) explaining the answer to the prompt verbally. Please no longer than 3 minutes.

The moment she found out that she was a witch, she wanted to know how to make it work for her.

The world was not a good place for a millennial, even if they did have a degree. Seventeen years of full time education and a student loan that needed to be paid back didn't always guarantee you a job in the muggle world; but from what she'd heard, there were more employment opportunities for the wizarding one, and they weren't all academic. It seemed to be a much better system... she just had to apply her new skills to her old skills, and hey presto! Maybe she'd even find a way to subtly use them in a muggle job.

It was in her first transfiguration lesson that she had the idea. She had a muggle degree in marine biology, and had been swimming and SCUBA diving for years, now. But there was only so much you could do with scientific diving if you had to come up for air every forty minutes, or could only get to a certain depth without your lungs collapsing. Transfiguration was exactly what she needed! They'd been told about people who gave themselves gills, but with some practice and research and a lot of care, she could take that further. Gills would let her live underwater, but she'd probably need some sort of swim bladder, or a way to enhance her lung capacity and decrease the pressure on her organs. Melting her fingers and toes together into webbed fins would help her to dive and surface more quickly, and she'd have to find some way to stop her eyes from stinging with the salt.

The more she thought about it, the more the idea took shape. If she could wrangle it so that she could stay offshore for days on end, on her own, then no one would suspect a thing. She could stay in the water, or if that wasn't safe, at least spend the days there. It was that which really limited her plan, though. She could make herself look like a fish, or a whale, perhaps a cephalopod, if she ever learned to be an animagus, but could she behave like one? It would be dangerous in the ocean, and no one would never know what happened to her if she was happily bobbing around a coral reef and a larger fish came up and swallowed her. So what else could she use, if human transformation was out?

Switching. If she could learn wandless magic, and quickly switch out an empty oxygen tank for a full one, then she would be able to prolong her dives without having to hang a spare tank from the boat, or have someone come down with one. Maybe she could even rig her regulator or her gauge to let her know for sure when she needed a new tank, but that was a worry for another day, another lesson or field of magic. Or if switching out the tank proved too difficult, or too easily noticed, then she could just transform the target long enough to surface if she was getting low on air. If anyone suspected she'd been down longer than her oxygen intake suggested, she could easily pretend that she'd been careful, was an experienced diver, any number of excuses. And if it was questioned later, when her oxygen seemed to have gone down all on its own, then she could claim technical error.

She could see it now, in all the wizarding magazines. Was their a wizarding science community? She wasn't sure. "Muggleborn Wizard Revolutionises SCUBA diving!" or maybe "Transfigured Muggleborn To Study Giant Squid in Hogwarts Lake!" But first - she'd have to finish her homework...


	2. First Year - Lesson 4 - Mutability and Connections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Please write an assignment telling about your experience during your attempts to change a matchstick to a needle. If you do not fully succeed, it is fine. You are not expected to produce a perfect needle. Please include the following:
> 
> \- Why the similarity index is important and how it applies to this particular transformation  
> \- Why concentration and willpower are important and how you intend to balance them.  
> \- The universal connection between the matchstick and needle.  
> \- Your resulting matchstick/needle.  
> \- What you plan on changing about your technique in future attempts to make it more successful.
> 
> You may use some creativity for this assignment which are limited to the following options: 
> 
> **\- Write a standard essay that explains the experience. (400 word minimum)**  
>  \- Author a short story. (500 word minimum)  
> \- Make an artistic drawing. A 200 word essay must accompany the image with an explanation of what is happening in the picture.  
> \- A poem or song that is a minimum of 200 words.  
> \- A short video (must be 1-2 minutes long) explaining the answer to the prompt verbally. Please no longer than 3 minutes.

** Match Stick to Needle Practice **

**Aim:**  
To transfigure a wooden, strike-anywhere match ([fig. 1](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v192/Dani112/Transfiguration/match_zpsfd460fb0.jpg)) into a silver needle ([fig. 2](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v192/Dani112/Transfiguration/needle_zpsc431b5a1.jpeg)).

 **Hypothesis:  
** My hypothesis is that the transfiguration of a wooden, strike-anywhere match stick to a silver needle should not be too difficult. I believe this because the materials which compromise both are primarily naturally occurring as opposed to artificially constructed. Furthermore, they have a high similarity index (defined as the similarities and range thereof between an original item and its transfigured form), as in this case both items are of similar shape, size, width and weight; they are also both solids, rather than liquids or gases. The primary differences lie in their molecular structure - silver versus wood - whether their edges are rounded (needle) or prismular (matchstick) and the presence of a head on the match, and not the needle.

Another reason I believe this will be an easy endeavour is that I possess what is considered a wilful wand - ash, with a veela hair core.

 **Methodology:**  
For this transfiguration, I will be attempting a simple transfiguration spell, Muto Inanimus. Prior to attempting the spell, the wand movement and incantation shall be practiced a number of times.

  * The wand movement will begin at the combustible end of the wooden matchstick.
  * "Muto" will be spoken on the downward stroke of my wand, while "Inanimus" will be spoken as the wand passes down the length of the matchstick/needle.
  * The wand movement will end at the sharp end of what will hopefully be a needle.



**Results:**  
After sixteen failed attempts, I was successful in transfiguring a matchstick into a needle, from which I draw the conclusion that it was not as easy as I had expected (and as such, that I am not as adept at transfiguration as I had hoped). My results are detailed in the table below:

**Attempt** | **End Result** | **Attempt** | **End Result**  
---|---|---|---  
**1** |  No change in matchstick. | **2** |  No change in matchstick.  
**3** |  Wooden matchstick with rounded end. | **4** |  Wooden matchstick with no combustible head.  
**5** |  Wooden matchstick with no combustible head. | **6** |  Silver stick with no loop.  
**7** |  No change in matchstick. | **8** |  Wooden needle.  
**9** |  Wooden needle. | **10** |  Wooden needle.  
**11** |  Pile of wooden splinters and combustible head. | **12** |  Silver matchstick with no combustible head.  
**13** |  Shortened silver needle, mostly just the loop. | **14** |  Lengthened silver needle, dull.  
**15** |  Misshapen silver needle with no loop, dull. | **16** |  Misshapen silver needle.  
**17** |  Silver needle of correct dimensions.  
  
**Discussion:**

The universal connection between these two items comprises of two parts:

  1. That I will - eventually - convert one into the other; in this they have a predetermined relationship.
  2. The improvements that I will be able to make when replicating the transfiguration in future based on previous attempts, which I will now discuss:



Based on the results detailed above, there are a few changes I would make if I were to attempt to transfigure something like this again; which in light of the fact that I have been known to make clothing for both re-enactment and cosplay purposes, I likely would:

The first thing I would change would be to increase my concentration; I was confident that this would be a simple task and thus did not give it my full attention. Furthermore, when a significant number of mistakes had been made, I lost became frustrated, thus continuing to make mistakes. This then led to me attempting to put more power into the spell - perhaps the equivalent of hitting the wooden matchstick repeatedly over the head in the hopes that it would comply with my wishes, which was as futile as it sounded - which resulted in on attempt 11, a pile of wooden splinters and a burned thumb. I also trusted too well in the perceived 'strength' of my wand.

Secondly, I would take more time to study both items were I to repeat the transfiguration. I believed I understood well enough the essence of both a matchstick and a needle to be able to transfigure one into the other 'from memory', which was incorrect. I did not show proper respect to the similarity index, and as such transfigured several misshapen, wrong-lengthened and dull needles.

 


End file.
